Evaluation of awareness about pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reaction monitoring in resident doctors of a tertiary care teaching hospital

OBJECTIVE: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are associated with significant morbidity and mortality and have a major impact on public health. Pharmacovigilance helps in early detection of ADRs and identification of risk factors. Underreporting of ADRs can be improved by imparting knowledge regarding pharmacovigilance to healthcare professionals. This study was aimed at investigating the knowledge and attitude of resident doctors about ADR reporting and suggesting possible ways of improving ADR reporting. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was a cross-sectional, questionnaire-based survey conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital. The respondents were resident doctors. Study instrument was a self-developed, pre-validated, semi-structured questionnaire consisting of open- and close-ended items. RESULTS: A total of 84 questionnaires were considered for analysis, giving a response rate of 93.33%. In all, 64.28% of the respondents were aware about pharmacovigilance, 52.38% were aware of ADR reporting system in India, 83.33% opined that only serious ADR with any medicine should be reported, and 35.72% believed that ADRs should be reported only for newly marketed agents. Although 67.85% of respondents observed an ADR, only 25% reported it; 44.04% were aware about the complete procedure of ADR reporting. General attitude of the respondents about ADR reporting was as follows: ADR reporting should be compulsory (15.19%), voluntary (41.66%), remunerated (3.57%), identity of prescriber should be concealed (21.42%), and identity of reporter should be concealed (29.7%). CONCLUSION: Increasing awareness about pharmacovigilance will be helpful in improving the status of ADR reporting. Other measures such as making ADR reporting guidelines available in the form of booklets and displaying posters can also play a useful role.